


Fresh Snow

by sugareign



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Physical Abuse, Sibling Rivalry, Sylvix Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 04:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21010010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugareign/pseuds/sugareign
Summary: The snow would always fall, but so did Sylvain every time Miklan hit him.Sylvix Week 2019 Day 1 - Childhood!





	Fresh Snow

Fresh snow was a common occurance in Gautier Territory. Bitter winds, open fields, but snowfall comes frequently. It's one of the best things about the days Felix goes to visit Sylvain, the chance to be able to play in the new snow with him.

The simplicity of childhood is bliss. Or it should have been. Felix has known little hardship in his own life, the only altercation between him and his own brother was the times when Felix became too clingy when he needed to practice and train. Those times when Glenn would raise his voice to his younger brother, he would always come back later and apologize. For all that Glenn was rude, he was compassionate for his little brother.

It was how siblings should be. Warm, loving, knowing that in a moment's notice that Glenn would come to his rescue and protect him from anything, just as he promised.  
As much as Felix adored this about his brother, not all brothers could be so happy. Not all brothers could be so lucky. Second sons often loathed the first sons, the heirs. The ones that would inherit everything in the family and then leave them with nothing. They were the ones more loved, they were the ones more taken care of. They were prominent and the upcoming face of the family.

On the condition that they had a crest.

One crest is the reason behind all of this. It's the culprit of why their play had come to an abrupt stop. Why the thrill of a new snow had turned into turmoil. Childhood was supposed to be simple, carefree. They were young, they were supposed to be safe. Kept away from the evil of the world and tucked away from the sinister ways of evil.  
Sylvain, unfortunately, was one of the unfortunate ones that evil enjoyed to prey upon. That day was no exception.

Small hands grip the hilt of the sword with all of his might, how much that is being surprisingly overwhelming for his size. Felix's knuckles turn pale with the hold, but no matter how fierce his handle on the sword is, it doesn't hide the very obvious wrack in his shoulders that travels all the way down to his legs.

He can hear the way that Miklan snickers at him, like he's not even a threat. Felix isn't much of one, not really. He barely reaches Miklan's waist, and even with his sword in hand, the tip only points up to the other's stomach, but both of them know that Felix has not yet the will to take advantage of it. He's too young, he's too innocent. Miklan knows this, and Felix, unfortunately does, too. The proof is in the way Felix's eyes prick with warm tears in the corners of them, the attempt to stifle his sniffles, the way his knees start to bend inward and his form falls down from his previous stance. He's becoming less and less intimidating, and all Miklan had to do was tower over him.

"L...Leave him alone!" he yips, breaking the barrier that his cheeks built between the tears and his skin to let them fall. The fear that Felix feels completely take over him is paralyzing. While he can yell a vague threat, he cannot move. Within the bitter cold, it would be normal for children to get too cold to move, and yet this is the closest to being frozen that Felix has ever been. From his toes to his knees, he can feel the freeze over cut into his skin. A weakness in his muscles only held up by the terror of moving. Should he move, he couldn't even imagine what could happen. His confidence only comes from standing in the small space between Miklan and his brother, but it is quickly wavering.  


What can he really do against someone twice his size? Miklan could so easily shove him aside and go right for Sylvain again. Yet he doesn't...and Felix doesn't know why. In not knowing why, he can be prideful of saving his friend from a senseless beating. For now, at least. Sylvain would be safe with him, for Felix would never let Miklan take another step closer if he could help it.

He's been watching helplessly for months. Prior to that, Sylvain would appear with new bandages and slowly healing bruises. Felix would constantly find a new scar and should he even move wrong, he would notice Sylvain flinch and hold his hands up for protection. Why... why would Sylvain think that Felix would hit him? It seemed so terrible at the time that Felix though Sylvain expected Felix to hit him...but such wasn't the case. It was someone else giving him the beating, Felix was just the unfortunate one to witness the aftermath. What he couldn't understand next, is why no one did anything. Not even Sylvain told anyone that he was getting hurt, or when he did, it was always the same excuses.  


He fell. A horse knocked him off. He got too close to the stove. He ran into a wall. It was never, ever Miklan's fault. And people believed him. Sylvain's parents believed him. Felix's parents believed him. Ingrid believed him. Glenn believed him. 

Sylvain was a good liar. An unfortunate skill that has come from his brother.

"Get outta the way, pipsqueak. You ain't the one I'm after," Miklan snarls, taking another strong step forward. Yet, Felix doesn't move. His fingers tighten around the sword handle and his nose curls tighter -- a feature that he's seen on his brother's face often when they practice together.

"Felix...get out of the way..." Felix's shoulders drop, his teeth draw his bottom lip in as his ' tough ' face falls to the words. His chin turns over his shoulder to the ground behind him, stomach churning at what he's tried to forget was there. 

Splatters of red absorb into the snow, but it's still creating a puddle under Sylvain's face where his nose has not stopped dripping. He keeps his head down, but he's propped up on his elbows and laying on his side. His knees curl up in a protective position -- as if tucking himself into his own being could somehow defend him from anything else that hurt him. His hat still sat discarded from where his head hit the ground, and red hair tousled all around and stuck to one side of his face where the blood ran to on a swollen cheek on the landing. The look of him, it makes Felix's stomach churn. He can hardly stand it.

"Get out of the way..." Sylvain repeats, though he doesn't pick his head up any further when he does. 

"Sylvain...!" Felix gasps, the air cold against his lungs as his breath hitches in a hard sob. In the few seconds that Felix has his head turned, he can hear Miklan taking another step forward. His response is instantaneous -- so quick, he doesn't even remember thinking about it. His arms flail, the blade of his sword swinging hard toward him. 

Had it not been so terrifying, it could have been a prideful moment. Felix's first blood, the first time he struck another person, the pride of his family line happily praising him for landing a hit. He can feel his blade cut, almost as if Miklan's skin was nothing but paper in the way of his swing. The yell that he lets out makes the young boy recoil, ripping the blade from the other's arm, which only seems to make his yell louder. 

Felix stumbles, his boot catching a hole in the snow to bring him completely to the ground. A new hole made in the shape of his sword from where it flung out of his hands beside him. The way Miklan turns his head to glare at him made him feel one foot tall, wanting to badly to disappear and just pretend that this never happened. He was terrified. The fire in the eldest Gautier's eyes was able to burn him. The snarl and the grit of his teeth, the new growl that emits from the back of his throat as he brings himself to turn to where Felix has fallen -- not another moment was wasted to pull the youngest boy up by the collar of his cloak to his level. Felix's legs dangling and kicking to be let loose, his tiny hands clutching Miklan's forearm as his fingernails dig into sandpaper skin. 

It's in this instance, that Sylvain finally stands. As short lived as it is, he manages to grasp Miklan's other arm, screaming protests at him that Felix can't make out in his panic.  
"Miklan, please! Please, please, don't!" 

It's cut off in an instant, as that same arm rips away from his little brother's hold and comes back to his face -- hard. Felix can hear the way something cracks, sending Sylvain right back down to the ground with a yelp. Sylvain's pleas fall on uncaring ears. They don't change anything. The brisk air hardly carries them.

They mean nothing.

Attention turns back to Felix, whimpering and panting in sheer horror when he does. He's never felt so small, even with being the youngest in their friend group. Even with always having to look up at everyone when they speak to him. Even with the seemingly never - moving marks that his mother puts on the doorframe to track his growth every week. Not even standing next to Miklan in general, has Felix ever felt so small as he has now. Being held up like a weightless ragdoll, whose awaiting to be defaced.

"You think you can just get away with hitting me 'cause you're some brat with a crest? What, your daddy gonna come save you? Little baby Felix picking fights he can't finish?" Each word that Miklan spits at him makes him shrink. His crest had nothing to do with standing up to him, but to Miklan, a crest meant everything.

He'd been born without one. Sylvain had. Miklan was disowned as heir to Gautier. Sylvain inherited it. Sylvain had taken everything from him...so was it truly wrong to take everything from Sylvain? One by one? Piece by piece, person by person? Miklan was no fool, he saw the blatantly obvious closeness that his brother and Felix shared. How Felix followed Sylvain around when he and his family visited the estate. The happiness that they had, even prior to Miklan coming to quite literally destroy their playtime together. Jealousy wouldn't even begin to cover it.

Miklan had beaten Sylvain multiple times. The want to hurt him is barely satiated by drawing blood. Just like how making him cry had become boring. How making him scream in pain slowly became dull. Bruises kept fading and so did the fun in creating them. The crave to make him suffer wanes with familiarity. He needed something new.  
Perhaps hurting Sylvain just wasn't enough anymore. He didn't have to physically harm his brother to hurt him, after all.

"It makes me sick...you still getting all that attention just because you have one. Your parents don't just toss you to the side, oh no, they act like they love you. They gotta, you know? You're so special. Getting two kids with crests? Talk about lucky," Miklan's grip grows tighter on Felix's cloak, pulling him closer despite the wails that Felix throws in his face, "You're nothing but a bonus. You're nothing. They could lose you and still be fine..."

"Miklan, no!" Sylvain cries at the raise of the elder boy's fist. His arm lifts, elbow cocking backwards to the tune of Felix's deafening screams, tears coming down his cheeks in thick, heavy streams. Miklan hasn't even touched him yet, and he already hurts. His face already goes numb and sore ( presumably from the wind ), his throat going raw from the helpless cries for help, but the pain of waiting would be nothing against the pain that was coming --

"Miklan!"

His elbow drops, and Felix's voice catches on his next scream. That voice...

"Glenn..." Miklan grimaces, but he doesn't turn his face away from Felix. His jaw tightens, teeth very obviously gritting under his lips as his nostrils flare. Brown eyes narrow into Felix's forehead, and if a glare could set him on fire, it surely would in that moment.

"I would give you a chance to explain yourself, but I can already see that you prefer beating children over someone your own age. They're the only people you can actually win a fight against, hm?" Glenn steps into the scene with an aura all his own, freezing the air around the four of them with a crippling glare, "I suggest you put him down."  
There's a long bout of silence, and Felix feels himself being lowered...but only enough to drop safely to the ground. He still lands on his back, but he's able to recover rather quickly, scrambling up to his hands and knees to crawl over to where Sylvain has now sat up in the snow. His arms open up for the younger boy, and Felix all but dives into the comfort of them. His tears and his sniffling abuse his chest, using it as a muffle as he lets out the rest of his utter terror flow out of his system. It's a guilty feeling, too, knowing that Sylvain got it so much worse and yet he is the one needing comforted. 

So he lifts his head back up to look at him.

Sylvain's nose is askew, and both fresh and dried blood cover the area around it with a smear off to one side. Felix's bare hands coming up to cradle the other's face, and carefully trying to swipe the drizzling crimson away from his nostrils, but it doesn't seem to clear the mess. Whatever conversation their older brothers are having, Felix doesn't care for it. He doesn't even remember their brothers being there until he catches sight of Miklan in his peripherals, whimpering as he feels the older boy pass by where he and Sylvain are -- but he doesn't stop, doesn't even look at them.

There's little relief in that, but for now, he's gone. They're safe. 

Sylvain is safe.

"Are you ok..?" Felix asks, sniffling in as he tries to settle his quivering bottom lip.

"'m fine...What about you? Did he hurt you?"

"Hah...no...no, I don't," he sniffs harder this time, "I don't know why I'm crying..."

"Felix. Sylvain." Their heads turn up to Glenn, who kneels down to them to get a better look at Sylvain's face with an aggravated sigh, "Come on, Sylvain. The old man will take a look at you. Can you walk?"

"Yeah...thank you, Glenn."

He gets no response beyond a nod and an affirmative hum. He extends an arm to the other to pull him up, and Sylvain wraps a strong arm around Felix's middle to lift him up at the same time. Felix still does not let go of him. Though he cannot hang from his neck, Felix takes his hand, walking close to Sylvain as they trot behind Glenn who leads the way back.

Felix's little hand squeezes onto Sylvain's, and when he looks up, he notes that it makes him smile. Happily. Despite what's just happened. His brother has just hurt him, and he can still find a reason to smile. Sylvain is one of the strongest people Felix knows.

Even after bad things, there is a reason to smile.

Fresh snow would fall again.


End file.
